The Interior DIYer
#DarkRomanticLuxe

Secondhand Victorian style* mirror

There was a huge amount of excitement yesterday as one of the key pieces for my One Room Challenge finally arrived! Our new [to us] secondhand Victorian style mirror and you guys, it’s incredible.

This is another perfect example of the first point in my blog post for my top tips for buying secondhand items online; looking past the pictures. The below was the photo uploaded onto Kijiji for the mirror. It wasn’t a great photo and because of that, people didn’t even bother to check it out [or zoom in on the photo to see how beautiful it is, as I did about a thousand times].

First of all, I found this mirror last year when I was looking for a mirror for our hallway [and I ended up getting this one]. I did a search for ‘vintage mirror’ on Kijiji and I did what I almost always do; I looked at every listing, right to the last page. And that’s where I found this Victorian style mirror.

I originally saw it advertised in October 2017. I called the owner and we had a long chat about the mirror. The owner had placed a bid on one of those storage units that so many TV shows are based around. He placed a bid, won the unit and found this behemoth mirror [among other things] inside. The mirror alone was originally bought for something like $700, but the owner lost interest in the storage unit and that’s how it came up for auction. This is then when the man now selling it hinted that the mirror had been advertised online for almost a year.

A year.

I sat and thought about it. It was and epic mirror, but at the time we had just moved to Canada and we were sleeping on the floor, so I couldn’t really prioritise it over buying essential things for our home. Like you know, groceries and milk for Cora and mattresses. So I waited. And thought about it. A lot. And really just waited for an appropriate amount of time to pass until I could buy it.

After Christmas I went looking for the mirror in my bookmarked tab but it was gone. I was heartbroken, but I also figured it was too good to be true and a little bit that it just wasn’t meant to be.

Then, ahead of the One Room Challenge, I started looking on Kijiji for a mirror in mid-February and to my absolute surprise, there it was. The Mirror. It had been relisted! I immediately called the owner again. He remembered me and we struck a deal; I would take the risk of buying the mirror without seeing it if he could guarantee the mirror was not broken or scratched, it had proper hanging equipment on the back, the frame was in good condition and that the giant plaster frame was not warped in any way. The owner lived an hour away and it was still the middle of winter here in Ottawa at the time, so we agreed he would deliver it once the snow had gone.

Want to take a guess how much I paid for it?

$100.

Plus delivery.

I’m not a monster. The man lived an hour away.


Juniper for scale.

He delivered the behemoth mirror yesterday as promised and it did not disappoint. It is equal parts epic and beautiful and I woke up in a panic last night about how we’re going to safely hang the damn thing because it weighs more than an adult human [I’m going to contact a few art galleries and hardware stores and get their advice. This is the most adult I’ve ever felt].

I have to stress that my hurried photos do absolutely no justice to the detail on it and the finish. It’s really beautiful. And to give you a full idea of how big it is, it’s 50″ / 4ft tall and 60″ / 5ft wide. This thing is incredible. I cannot wait to hang it up.

EDIT: I called a professional art installer and they suggested French cleats to hang the mirror securely – something I thought of but never knew the name of! Fingers crossed.

*I have no idea if it’s a Victorian style or not. I called the last one a Baroque style mirror, so this one is being called a Victorian. But in all seriousness, if you do actually know the style or era this mirror is modeled after, I would love to know! I’m fairly clueless with dating things like this. I have Googled it, but Google isn’t great with dating “giant fancy funny shaped mirrors”.

#DarkRomanticLuxe

One Room Challenge Spring 2018 – Week Three!

After I published last weeks One Room Challenge update, Handyman Dave came over to take down the monstrosity of track lighting in our dining room and MacGyvered our secondhand Kijiji chandelier in place. Our dining room chandelier is a lot bigger than our living room chandelier and is heavy even without all the acrylic crystals. I can attest to how heavy it is because I had the embarrassing task of [trying to] hold the chandelier in my outstretched, feeble blogger arms while Handyman Dave wired it into place.

Do you want to know my favourite part of this chandelier? Its $10 price tag. It’s exactly the kind of warm and fuzzy feelings I get from hunting down really good secondhand deals.

On Sunday I got the worst part of my One Room Challenge over and done with; painting the ceiling. There are few things I hate more than painting ceilings; painting radiators would be one of them and people who don’t cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze is another. I got out my tiny stepladder and in one afternoon I managed to paint three coats of white paint over the existing orange ceiling.

Painting a ceiling is a lot like being pregnant; during the first coat you feel awful. Why did you get yourself into this situation? You’re dizzy and it takes you a while to acclimatize to what’s happening, but the second coat is much better. You feel confident. This isn’t so bad! I’m getting results! I feel great and this isn’t as hard as they said it’s going to be! Then it’s time for the inevitable third coat. You’re sore, irritable and you just want to get it over with. You want nothing more than to give up, but you know there’s only one way out of this situation and you’re left unable to walk properly once it’s all over. But the results are so worth it.

So yes, I am a total martyr for painting the ceiling and not giving up. The white ceiling immediately made the room feel better. I thought many times about why a person would paint a ceiling orange and I still cannot figure out for the life of me why [you can see our previously orange ceiling here].

But the most satisfying part of this week was finally deciding on a colour for the walls. I went three times to Home Depot to get five different CIL paint samples. I wanted to try each paint in every lighting scenario before deciding on one. Up high, down low, from the windows to the walls.

The moment I saw the name of it, Kitten White, I knew it was going to be the right shade of greige for us and luckily, it was perfect! It took a while for me to be fully convinved though as the walls in our dining room are currently yellow, so it made the Kitten White look almost lilac. So I tried painting it up by the [now] white ceiling for a neutral reference, and it looked purrfect. I also held lots of artwork [like our iBride trays I was crazy enough to pack in my suitcase when we emigrated] as well as gold accents and it looks B E A U T I F U L with everything.

It works perfectly with our Classic Burgundy feature wall which, let’s face it, is a colour that will be featured a lot in our apartment so it was important that whatever greige I chose worked with it.

I picked up 3.68L of Kitten White last night and I actually cannot wait to get painting. Also, the faux marble contact paper I ordered to recover the dining room table arrived yesterday so I’ll be updating that in the coming days. I’m also a few steps closer to painting our dining room hutch black, getting a second hutch for the other side of the room, our antique gold mirror should be here within the next few weeks and I’ll be heading to IKEA soon to try out some dining chairs. It’s slowly starting to come together, but I can’t help but panic a bit ZOMG I ONLY HAVE THREE MORE WEEKS / three weeks? That’s tons of time! I am a glass case of emotion.

p.s. Check out all the Guest Participants’ Week Three ORC updates here! There are some amazing transformations happening right now.

Week One – Week Two – Week Three – Week Four – Week Five – Week Six

#DarkRomanticLuxe

Our Article Sven Shadow Gray Sectional Sofa

Our cosy living room is slowly coming together and that’s hugely down to our brand new Article Sven Sectional Sofa! I hinted towards our new purchase a few weeks ago, but we were in no way expecting it to arrive so quickly. Last Saturday morning our beautiful couch arrived and we’ve been using every excuse since to spend more time in the living room.

We had been thinking of getting a new sofa for a few months now. We tried living with our secondhand French provincial sofa, but the reality is that while the armchair is very comfortable, the sofa was not. You couldn’t really bury yourself into the corner to watch a movie or put your feet up. And I wasn’t getting enough of the right kind of support so my hip pain was starting to return. All of that was pushing us towards investing in a new sofa. And when I say pushing I mean we were excited to have some solid excuses to get our dream couch.

Gray Article Sven Sectional Sofa with a blurry toddler having fun.

I can’t remember how I came to find Article’s Sven Sectional but it was one of those things that once I found it, I emailed Robert and then we talked about it for the next 3 months.

It’s a beautiful sofa. We were drawn to its tufted seat details, dark wood legs, overstuffed pillows, casual yet formal vibe, deep seats and built-in footrest. And it’s velvet [always my #1]. Their sectional is also big enough to double as a guest bed [which we’ll be using in a few weeks when my broseph comes to visit! All 8 feet of our couch will accommodate his 6’4″ height].

I contacted a few people through Instagram who owned the same couch and asked them how it had held up over the years. Some people had pets and some had kids and as long as a vat of hot liquid wasn’t poured across the couch and as long as you kept it out of direct sunlight and plumped the pillows occasionally, it seemed to fare quite well.

Still, because important things makes me nervous, it was a few more weeks until we actually completed the order. Throughout the process, every Article staff member and support team member I was in contact with were so helpful. I contacted Article by email, integrated chat on their website and by phone and on all accounts I spoke with real, honest people. No upselling or automated responses.

It’s such a fun sofa and is so beautiful that I sometimes can’t look directly at it. We’re counting ourselves very lucky to own such an incredible piece. AND it’s comfortable. Since it arrived on Saturday, my hip pain has decreased significantly. I’m not saying it’s a posturepedic couch and will answer everyone’s problems, it’s just a couch with the right kind of support that I needed. Either way, it’s a win-win for us!